now and then

It cut off this morning in mid-sentence, but sometimes it's possible to livestream Oyster Radio into 7H via my laptop. Time was when everyone in Franklin County turned on Oyster Radio early morning to find out whether the Bay was open (for oystering), but I guess those days are gone? If you don't know Oyster Radio you miss a lot, which is your prob not mine. We can both enjoy pictures pinched off their website now and then though.  

With the possible exception of some moments tucked away in far memories of my mind, if Father Time were to appear in front of me (the front door to 7H is closed and locked, but just as with Father Christmas in Narnia, locks and bolts make no difference to Father Time) - - this very moment, offering me a trip to another place in Time, it'd have to be summer of 1984, our arriving in Apalachicola to be their new priest at Trinity Church. If this were Narnia, that could happen, and stay there that fourteen years all over again, and return here to 7H with no Time at all having passed.

What am I doing? Breakfast report: three halves of stuffed eggs, each heavily draped with anchovies because (a) trying not to add salt and (b) even more delicious. Second cup of black coffee. Hour or so later, toasted slice of raisin bread from Sam's that my brother Walt recommended. No butter. Last sip of the black.

Typing out this nonsense, edit, post, then on to complete my lesson plan for our adult Sunday School class this weekend. Topic: Advent-related church doctrine. Last Sunday, The Second Coming. Next Sunday, The Virgin Birth. Mind, I teach, instruct, indoctrinate NOTHING, my idea is to open up the topic for discussion so that people can contemplate, and decide as they wish.

Noam Chomsky again. Are we really free thinking, or are we only opening up and encouraging lively discussion within the spectrum of acceptable opinion? So, and again, what would have been "outside the spectrum" last Sunday? We almost stepped outside when I was asked, "What do YOU believe?" Unconscionably perhaps, I tried to stay within bounds, when I might have said that I'm a one-time amateur would-be astronomer who knows about flat-Earth world views and that there's no possibility of someone coming on clouds from Heaven among throngs of angels. Creation doesn't work that way, Creation follows its own natural laws. Though I don't love the Doctrine of the Second Coming, I do love the music and hymns; and though I'm a bit resistant to the Creed and the memorial acclamation, I do lead it and say it without hesitation and no fingers crossed.

Just so then, this coming Sunday, the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth. Inside the box, a beautiful and much loved Christmas story that ends up with the Holy Family in Bethlehem, where Mary gives birth to Jesus and lays him in the φάτνῃ because there's no room for them in the καταλύματι. Silent night, holy night, round yon virgin, mother and child. I do love it, reading it, hearing it, imagining it, and singing all the songs, and I would not change a dot or tittle of Luke's story to Theophilus. 

What do I believe? Well, magic happens in Narnia, but this is faith, which is hope and confidence; this is not knowledge, which I have in another cubby. It isn't necessary for me to climb outside the box even if I know that whoever or whatever Pantokrator may be (staying inside that box) works within laws of nature (He) laid down in the Beginning with the command yə·hî, when Time and the Universe burst into being. 

This much I DO know: even in those days before Time and Space, Pantokrator spoke only Hebrew:

יְהִ֣י